A few years ago, an enthralling video was published from the New York Times: the Ten Meter Tower. Participants took their time contemplating their fears jumping from a perilously high board. Some people jumped in relatively quickly. But watching stronger hesitations, with false starts and deep inhales, you mounted a small fear response by proxy as they contemplated the understood threats to their safety of a ten meter jump.
So when I read about this oddity of a disease, I wondered what ridiculous board would I jump off if I had no fear at all?
Today’s Moment of Science… the No Fear Disease.
Also known as lipoid proteinosis, Urbach-Wiethe Disease is a recessive inherited disorder caused by a chromosomal mutation. It’s marked visibly by small papules blossoming in areas where skin moves frequently, and subsequently becomes inflamed. This includes the hands, mouth, eyelids, and joints.
It also causes a build-up of calcium-based lesions in the amygdala, which google assures me will cause some fucking shenanigans.
The limbic system is responsible for managing our emotions, and it delegates fear and threat detection to our almond shaped amygdalae, one deep in each hemisphere. Given decades of deposits boring away at a previously functioning emotion center, someone who was born capable of knowing a healthy level of fear could turn into the first person out in the zombie apocalypse.
If you’re considering WebMD’ing the shit out of this because you describe yourself as an ‘adrenaline junkie’ in your dating profile, I’m gonna save you the time. You’d goddamn know if your amygdala had exited the chat.
The case study of a woman only identified as ‘S.M’ to protect her identity has given a fascinating window into a life without fear.
It is, paradoxically, fucking terrifying.
She goes to haunted houses and doesn’t flinch; in fact, she laughs. Exotic animals and the types of bugs that often cause people to panic pique curiosity for her. Living in ‘rough’ neighborhoods doesn’t faze her, and even being held up on multiple occasions at knife and gunpoint and threatened with her life? She walked, not ran, away in each instance, and didn’t avoid the areas where she’d been threatened. Registering the meaning of a fearful expression on someone’s face is an insurmountable task for S.M.. Horror movies? She finds them kinda interesting, but not even remotely scary.
The disorder doesn’t seem to have affected her intelligence level, and all her other emotions work fine.
Some of it sounds great. Shed inhibitions, be gay, do crimes. So freeing. But there’s such a thing as a healthy level of fear. A functioning amygdala might contribute to your overblown phobias, but it’ll also make you give pause and consider the physics of the human body when taking a long flying leap.
I think S.M. would have made for a boring, but fascinating, addition to the Ten Meter Tower video.
This has been your daily Moment of Science, asking what you’re afraid of the most, but more importantly, why?
My amygdala is just fine, thank you, but I’m also accustomed to higher stress environments. Think war, modern war and insurgent warfare.
So, gunfire is something I actively approach – to eliminate a threat,
That’s a common theme in my behavior, eliminating or otherwise neutralizing a threat. Running away presents the side of me lacking eyes to ascertain a true and present threat.
I’ll suggest that, if one is trained and experienced, isn’t a survival trait. Without such skills, a necessary survival trait.
I also have a touch of acquired sociopathic traits. It isn’t me being injured, when having to physically neutralize a threat.
Comes from being an SF medic, “not my wound, deal with it as best that you can”.
BTW, a full disclosure, I do walk with a cane. An excellent staff weapon, when applied from a position of strength, balance and ground support for striking.
My preference is to talk my way out of a bad situation, which has, overall, done well.
But, even nearing age 60, well, the capitol gate I’d be on wouldld’ve remained closed.
So, the amygdala can be tamed and trained.
Wish there was a place to register ‘Likes’. If there was a place for ‘Far F888ing Out’, that would be even better. Such consistently tantalizing, well-written scientific pieces deserve more praise.